


Fractures

by Dovey



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Development, Character Growth, naruto gets mental growth, sakura gets BIG MUSCLES, sasuke gets emotional growth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-22 01:27:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13753347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dovey/pseuds/Dovey
Summary: when Sakura jumps between naruto and sasuke on the hospital roof, she expects to die. Instead, the entirety of team seven gets PTSD and make some Big Changes. Sakura can't handle the sight of her teammates. Naruto realizes his goals and his methods do not match up. Sasuke realizes his nindo will never work.They set about fixing these things, and find their own teachers to do it.





	1. Sakura's POV

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theformerone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the pretty one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622718) by [theformerone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone). 



Sakura can’t hesitate, so she doesn’t.

 Naruto is rushing at Sasuke with his hand surrounded in swirling, cutting wind; sasuke is running with his hand crackling with a fierce sharp light; and sakura finally beats the boys at something.

  She moves faster than the both of them, and in that second of instinct, she succeeds in the only way she can. Sakura is smart, but she’s useless in the battlefield. Just like in their disastrous mission in wave, she can’t do anything but use herself as a shield for the person she’s meant to protect- or, in this case, people.  

 There’s a moment of nothingness, as one hand crashes through her stomach and the other through her upper chest and she looks down from Naruto’s widening eyes and down at the hand sticking through her chest, covered in what she’s pretty sure is her blood and bits of her spine, and then she registers the shrieking.

It’s not a scream, but an endless, fruitless _screech,_ careening through the air and whisked away by the winds, and it probably registers as a dying fox to half the civilians in the area who don’t know any better. It takes her far too long to realize the noise is coming from her, and she half-heartedly thinks that she can only hope the noise will stop soon because she’s pretty sure they can’t bury a screaming corpse and her family has never been one for urns and then things turn blissfully, blissfully quiet.

\--

They don’t know the woman who lands on the roof next to them, but they’ve just killed their teammate and they probably wouldn’t register a second nin invasion if it had started around them.

They do what they are told in the hopes that the body in front of them will turn back into a friend. Instead, she turns into a comatose patient, but they will take what they can get and they look at the woman in front of them like she is a god because she has undone something that defines the Shinobi world.

\--

When Sakura wakes up, her first thought is that she thought the afterlife was less sterile.  Then, she looks down, and there’s a boy there, fussing with an iv tube, and the boy’s eyes flick up to her and widen and she thinks something about him looks familiar but she has no idea what.

“you’re awake!” He says, and she could swear he sounds excited, and then his hand is reaching towards her- his hand is- his hand _hishandhishand blood and spine and pain and pain and pain and-_

She’s screaming again, barely registering above a whisper from her hoarse throat, scrambling back, but he just moves closer, closer, he’s going to kill her-

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re in the hospital, it’s me-“

The words rush past like a stream, none of them registering, because that hand is still moving _towards her_ and the world is red and her memories are of flashes of an invasion and a fist through her chest and through her gut and a pain so brutal it makes her want to die all over again to escape it.

“I’ll get a nurse.” He promises, and his hand touches her shoulder as she’s frozen in shock, and the only words that register are his parting words as he runs out of the room, “I’ll come back.”

A threat. An enemy nin, a threat, he’s going to hurt her, or worse, use her to get secrets on the Konoha nin. Do they think she knows something? Does she know something important without even realizing it?

She can’t stay here.

She scrambles out the window, and it’s a five floor drop but she clings to the wall with the panic-induced skill of a far more experienced nin and makes it down with only a horrible twisting pain in her gut and a twisted ankle as a sign of injury. She stumbles through the streets, and is lucky that so many shinobi escape the hospital that the area is used to the sight, even if she’s younger than they’re used to. After the invasion, it would take a lot more to surprise these civilians.

Where can she go?

She remembers in a flash that her home was destroyed, her parents crushed in the invasion, and it barely registers beyond the truth that she can’t go there.

She stumbles down the road and finds her way to the Yamanaka flower shop and finds, with relief, a familiar face at the storefront.

“Sakura!” The girl says, and sakura can barely mumble out the words “hide me” before she collapses.

If it was anyone else, she likely would’ve woken back up in the hospital. But Ino was faithful before she was practical, and so Sakura wakes up in a lavender bedroom surrounded by stuffed animals and for the first time in weeks she feels safe.

“where have you _been?”_ Ino hisses, seeing that she’s awake, and already reaches forward to tenderly adjust the blanket around her. Ah. She missed Ino so much, these past few weeks, or months, or years. Time is tricky right now. “Sensei said you were on a mission but your teammates where still in the village and I thought you had died-“

Sakura rubs her head begrudgingly at the beginning of a pain-induced headache. Ino has bandaged her chest to be safe, and set up her ankle with a cold compress, but there’s still a roiling endless agitation from her body that’s hard to ignore.

 “I’m not totally sure I didn’t.” Sakura says with a half-hearted attempt at a grin, which earns her the most delicate slap she’s ever received.

“This isn’t funny! I haven’t seen you in ages and I was worried.”

Sakura reached out to take Ino’s hand as kindly as possible, and looks her in the eyes- which is a particularly strong sign of trust considering the yamanko family abilities.

“My memories are pretty fuzzy right now, but I know…something happened, around the invasion? Maybe during it, maybe after, but after it happened I was asleep for a long time and I woke up…”

Where had she woken up?

 “The hospital! I woke up in the hospital, but the person there was-“ and she tried to search her fragmented memories for a face, a name if she was lucky, but all she could remember was a hand and a nightmare and the desperate need to escape. “Not a friend.”

Ino could sense the meaning behind the word and squeezed the hand in her grip gently.

“Well, you’re with a friend now. And a pretty important one, hmm, forehead? Whoever did this- whatever this is- they’ll have to face the force of the Yamanaka if they want to get to you!”

It’s a foolish, childish promise for a clan heir to make. The sort of thing that could only be contested by blood oaths or arranged betrothals, the sort of agreement that should be made with a carefully reviewed contract. Ino gave it instantly and willingly with no qualms, fully knowing the extent her word held in her clan. Sakura loved her for it, fiercely, and fell back asleep with the knowledge that she was safe and cared for and deeply indebted to a clan with ties to torture and mind invasion.


	2. Sasuke's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter begins while Sakura is still in her medically-induced coma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thank you to ashfire for serving as beta to this chapter! definitely helped me get over my fears about writing for someone's POV besides Sakura :)

 

He’s always considered Sakura weak.

It’s a fact, really. Sakura is weak, just like the rest of his classmates. Just like most of Konoha, and then some, because she is useless and kind and affectionate—and now she’s in a hospital bed and might not wake up, and it’s his fault.

Sasuke is strong in every way a ninja should be. He does not cry and he does not mourn. He fights, seeks revenge, and he grows more powerful every day. He trains his body, memorizes jutsu after jutsu, and refuses to let pain slow him down. For years, this is what has mattered: he is the best fighter in his grade, he will be the best fighter in his village, and then he will kill his brother.

Except, now, it does not matter. It does not matter that he can make a perfect set of semi-substantial clones. It does not matter that he can perform four out of his clan’s ten most essential jutsu. It does not matter that he has passed every class and won every spar and has been willing to kill every opponent he has ever faced, because his teammate is fading away on a hospital bed and there is nothing,  _ nothing _ he can do about it.

Worse, it doesn’t matter if he gets stronger. If he knew all ten of his clan’s jutsu, she would still be stuck in that bed. If he could make as many clones as Naruto, she would still be slipping away. He could be the most powerful ninja in the village, in the world, and Sakura would be just as close to death.

What does he intend to do when he finally kills his brother? Why does he want to kill his brother so desperately? Because he had been weak, and been unable to protect his precious people from Itachi?  _ What does that matter, if he kills them himself? _

Sakura was weak, and she had depended on him to keep her safe, and all Sasuke can think about is how he had looked up to Itachi when he was five and didn’t know a single jutsu and relied on his brother to protect him from the big, scary world. Itachi had destroyed Sasuke’s world, and Sasuke had put a fist through Sakura’s chest, and when he looks in the mirror he sees his brother more than himself looking back- the same bloodline, the same blood, red hands and red eyes that cannot be undone. 

_ No matter how many techniques I learn, I will never be strong enough to protect others from myself. _

He is lost, unable to eat or think or train (and this last thing is much more shocking than the first two), until he remembers The Woman. The one on the roof, who he distantly knows has become Hokage while he’s been drifting these past few weeks, Tsunade the legendary medic. She is powerful because she can fix things, not break them. She turned his mistake into a puckering scar and a chance at redemption, and there is suddenly nothing he wants more than to be like her.

He will grow more powerful than Itachi by being able to save anyone, everyone, whom the Uchiha curse is inflicted on. He will grow strong enough to protect his precious people no matter what. He’ll change. He has to change, or the Uchiha will be nothing but a bitter blood feud that stained Konoha’s history book.

\--

It takes him little time to find her office, and to sneak past her guards. He storms in and slams his fists on her table and yells, “Take me on as your apprentice!”

The woman gives him a considering glance and then cackles. “No way.”

He had not considered that she would refuse. He is used to people fighting to take him on, trying to bribe him with forbidden techniques or a unique skillset. He has never even had to ask before.

“But—but I need to be able to heal.” He says, and his voice cracks, and he doesn’t care because this goal is the only thing keeping him from finally falling apart.

“And how’s that my problem, kid?”

It’s true. She’s Hokage, she’s busy enough as she is, and he’s the last Uchiha. He cannot offer her clan favoritism or connections like he might’ve in another life. All he can offer is himself.

“I’m—I’ll study hard. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ve got the sharingan—“

“—which has almost no use in medical applications. Your bloodline makes you a fighter, kid, and your prodigy status makes you an asset. You’ve been dealt the kind of genetics most shinobi would kill for. Why should you throw that away for something you’ve got no skills for?”

He clenched and then unclenched his fists. His instincts got him into this mess and he’s going to brutally unlearn them before Sakura wakes up. (She has to wake up. She has to.) 

“Because I hurt people, and I want to help them. I have to fix my mistakes.”

She gives him another considering glance, and this time, it ends with a smile. He dares to hope. 

“Fine. You’ll start with chakra control exercises and bedpan duty in the hospital. You’re not getting any favoritism this way around, kid, basically the opposite. You’re going to earn every lesson with blood and sweat and piss. Lots of pans of piss.”

Sasuke can’t hide the grimace on his face but he nods regardless, and gives a more respectful bow than he’s given to anyone in years. She’s doing him a favor, doing this, and he’ll do whatever it takes.

“I understand.”

“Maybe you’ll grow on me after all, huh. Go down to the front desk and tell the nurse there that you’re on cleanup duty for the next four months. Start your academy chakra exercises in your free time and come to me when you think you’ve got good enough control to start applications.”


	3. Naruto's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto is slower to change than Sasuke, but the seed of an idea is planted this chapter that will sprout post Sakura's escape.

Naruto can’t sleep. He also can’t bring himself to see her. He put her there, in that bed, in that restless sleep- one of his only friends, and he might not be able to make it up to her. If he went to see her, he’d cry, and he wouldn’t be able to stop because she’s not able to wake up and forgive him and he can’t stand to face her until he knows if it’s possible for him to earn her forgiveness.

So he spends his restless nights sitting guard outside the hospital, below Sakura’s window five flights up, and ignores the stares it earns him. He’s used to dirt beds and odd looks, and at least here he feels useful. Less guilty.  He keeps vigil in case someone, something, anything comes to harm her. It’s the least he can do, and even though he knows this is some sort of shock reaction, merging the trauma from the chuunin exams with the trauma of his terrible mistake, he can’t move past it yet, so he sits and he waits and he hopes.

Kakashi comes to talk with him almost every day. Keeps him updated on the village, on the other rookie 9. He tells Naruto that Sasuke has started to take shifts at the hospital, and now Naruto’s vigile is for both his teammates: protect Sasuke from the snake saanin who’d tempted the boy with power, protect Sakura from….. well, he had to protect her. He had to protect them both.

Eventually, Kakashi comes to him with promises of a Jiraya taking him as an apprentice, out of the village, to learn about the world first-hand, and Naruto can barely contain his rage.

“You want me to leave? Leave them unprotected? Sasuke is being chased by that crazy dude, and Sakura still hasn’t woken up, and you want me to leave the village so I can get even _better_ at punching my fists through my friends?” Naruto yells, and it’s only the look of a disapproving nurse on a smoke break that gets him to quiet down.

He turns a heated glance towards Kakashi and tells him in a harsh whisper,

“I thought it was weird Jiryia was so alone, but now I get it. He runs from people because it’s hard to lose them, and all he’s gonna teach me is to do the same thing. I’m gonna do better than that, sensei! _I have to do better_.”

Kakashi does not mention the apprenticeship after that.

\--

The first time he leaves his position- because he has to, eventually, and because he saw an influx of high-rankers (Getting their check-ups, funnily enough, Naruto never even knew the village did that) and he feels like it’s just barely secure enough for him to leave. He’s terrified if he stays too long he’ll jinx things, and he has to think about things where the victims aren’t so close. So he leaves. (It gives him hives and he can barely focus but he's a monster and even at the distance he's kept, maybe he's cursing her, maybe he's the reason she can't wake up, maybe-) 

He goes somewhere familiar, and he thinks.

Naruto sits in front of the monument, hand pressed against an empty space, considering how close he has come to carving a new name into it. He can feel more than hear his sensei approaching from behind, and doesn’t bother to turn around.                         

“You warned me not to end up here myself.” He mutters, and his fingertips grace the newer names with a delicateness he rarely shows. “You never said I could put others here.”

Kakashi sits next to him, and Naruto refuses to look. Neither acknowledge the tears streaming down the boy’s face. He couldn’t cry when he was standing guard because he had a job to do, but now there’s nothing to hold him back.

“I didn’t think I had to, yet.” Kakashi ruefully admits, pausing to stare at the sky and search for the words he needs. “Foolish. Your sensei here has put two of those names there himself, and I was younger than you at the time.” It’s self-deprecating in the way that all of kakashi’s grief seems to be: honest, and bitter.

Naruto winces, but turns to look at his teacher with a reserved sort of consideration.

“Don’t underestimate your teammates. I learned that lesson the hard way. She’ll wake up, and all three of you will work this out together.”

For once, Kakashi is the first to leave the monument, letting his most foolhardy student consider his words alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does Kakashi give bad advice? Does he give good advice? Does he ever wash that face mask? Boy, I hope so, or it sure must be real groddy by now. 
> 
> Naruto is probably the hardest to write from the perspective of but i'm trying!


	4. Sasuke, then Sakura's POV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reunited too soon.   
>  in which the timelines finally match up!

Sakura is gone when he finally comes back with a nurse. She’s _gone._ There is a tremendous, gaping hole in his routine that he had so desperately clung to until now: he did his rounds, shadowed the nurses and doctors, checked in on sakura, did more rounds, checked on Naruto, practiced his chakra control, checked in on sakura, ate, checked in on sakura- and as ashamed as he was that he had put her there, the knowledge that at any moment he could go and look and _see_ that she was alive, recovering, safe and under the best care in the village was the only reassurance he had.

And now she was gone and his newly formed routine is in shambles.

The civilians that the chuunin assisting with the search question (because it’s post-disaster and they cannot spare professionals for a stray patient, and the thought of this is sour in Sasuke’s mouth as much as it is logical) admit to having seen a pink-haired girl escaping from the hospital, but they’d seen two other such escapees the same day and had not payed any attention to where she was going. It was a small relief to know that she’d left of her own volition.

Naruto is a force of nature in the search, sending out enough clones for a small army to check every inch of public space in Konoha (And try to break into the less-so-public places if they could). Kakashi is clearly annoyed with himself for not considering that Sakura might be as averse to hospitals as he was, even if he refuses to say as much and focuses his energy on finding something of Sakura’s to use for his summons' scent trail.

It takes longer than they’d like: her house was destroyed in the invasion, apparently, and she didn’t leave much lying around.

\--

Her memories are disjointed still, fragile shards that reflect her past in odd ways and she feels like she has to be careful slotting them back into place or she’ll go crazy. She always loved puzzles as a child, but this is something far more painful, and she hates that she cannot solve it yet.

 Ino is happy to wait. She braids Sakura’s hair and has the clan doctor- the one for the headhouse, because it’s The Heir’s best friend and who would ever argue with Ino- take care of her injuries. Sakura is always quieter after her checkups, more like a ghost at the reminder of the scarred skin that blemishes so much of her body.

Then Ino demands she return the favor, “And my hair is way longer and shinier than yours, anyways!”, and promises to show her the cool thing she just learned from Chouji, and things are closer to normal. Ino is so good at fixing things, at fixing _her,_ and Sakura will never stop trying to repay her for that when everything is said and done.

 Nobody mentions that Sakura refuses to leave the house, barely leaves Ino’s room. She helps out in the garden and washes the vegetables before dinner and no one says anything at all, and Sakura is grateful. They answer all of Sakura’s questions, and never push her for answers of their own, to her immense relief.

 Apparently, Sakura was injured on a mission. Or maybe she wasn’t on a mission, and she’d been hurt at the chuunin exams or afterwards in some way that the Hokage didn’t want spread around the village. Every time Sakura tried to remember exactly what happened, all she can think about is a cold breeze and birds chirping and the sight of her own blood, and then she stops trying to remember rather quickly.

 It’s been at least a month with them when Ino says, “you have a visitor!” With the sort of enthusiasm she usually reserves for new dresses or specialty jutsus, so Sakura is optimistic as she makes her way down the stairs as slowly as possible.

 The man waiting at the bottom of them is so familiar, something about him making her feel protected and safe and-

“Kakashi-Sensei!” She yells, and her memories slot back into place for just a moment and it’s wonderful.

“We’ve been rather worried about you, Sakura. Why didn’t you tell us where you where?” Kakashi asks, but he says it much nicer than Ino had.

“We?” she questions, and then she remembers her teammates. Oh, how could she forget her teammates? Lovely Sasuke-kun and annoying Naruto. Sasuke’s small smile and Naruto’s giant grin, how they had protected her in Wave, how dedicated they both were to being amazing shinobi one day! Sasuke and his lovely black hair, Naruto and his ridiculous orange suit and expressive eyes, widening, as they look down and see, _hands, a hand through her chest, a hand through her back through her spine through her-_

Kakashi catches her when she faints and has the decency to look surprised about it.

 When she wakes up, it’s on the Yamanaka’s roof and Kakashi is sitting close by. It’s nice, even if the breeze is unsettling her a bit, a reminder of _ripping through her fast so fast so cold like winter winds it’s-_

A reminder of unpleasant times she’s only just reconnected in her brain into a coherent story.

 “I can help.” Kakashi tells her, and she’s so relieved she could cry. Of course he can help! He’s her sensei, and a jounin, and he’s’ so strong and smart and experienced that he must know how to fix her, so that the very thought of her teammates is not so unsettling. “You’ve been traumatized. You just need exposure to your triggers, and you’ll be able to push past it.”

She doesn’t fully understand the words he’s using, but she’s happy to hear he knows what this is, how to make her better. He pats her on the head and tells her, “I had to do the same thing when I was a little younger than you.”

This time she does not hold back the tears because Kakashi is so strong and he’s valued by the village, and he had to go through the same thing, so maybe- maybe one day, she can still grow up to be strong and important too. This doesn’t have to ruin her future.

When he picks her up bridal style and jumps down to the street below, she doesn’t mind. And as he starts to walk her towards the hospital where her teammates are apparently waiting, she doesn’t- well, she doesn’t want to mind.

 As they get closer, though, she starts to tremble. Her heart rate starts to pick up. She can see the roof of it now, the roof where it happened, and she cannot help the trembling or the way her eyes begin to flick around to search for threats. He hushes her and sets her down and she walks on wobbling knees a little closer, and then-

And then she can make out Naruto and Sasuke in the distance, backs to them. Naruto in bright orange, Sasuke in all black, fighting about something again, raised voices, and- and-

She cannot move any more. Kakashi nudges her forward. “You have to get used to them again.” He says. “They need you, you need them. They’re your team.” He pleads.

 She _wants_ to move. She wants to be able to go up to them and tell them that she loves them, even dumb Naruto. Wants to say that it’s not their fault, that she chose to jump between them and she didn’t expect to survive it and it’s fine and they shouldn’t feel guilty. Then they can all go get ramen at the awful place Naruto likes and everything will be like it used to be and they can be a team again, and she’ll be Sakura again, instead of this fragile useless mess of bones and quivering muscles.

 But she can’t, because suddenly she’s no longer in her body, she’s drifting above it. Her heart is in her throat and her arms are shaking almost as bad as her legs, and she can’t look forward because then she will see them again and she can’t, she can’t do that, anything but that- and she is running, running, _running_ to get away and it’s not a choice, it’s just what her body does.

She wakes up back at the Yamanakas and Ino is standing guard over her and informing an _actual_ guard to not let “Hatake anywhere _near_ this house!” and she realizes she will never be Sakura Haruno again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the thing, folks: I know WAY too much about ptsd* to not try and be as accurate as possible, so I'm going to be including detailed end notes (like I am right now!) explaining the stuff that seems weird or unnatural. Brains don't always process things as simply as we want them to, which means it's not always cut and dry how someone reacts to stuff. 
> 
> First off, Kakashi means well! But he's doing something that's really common for someone who doesn't have, like, some deep-cut official knowledge on how triggers work. Essentially, he's able to connect exposure to triggers with the effect of the trigger lessening, and he thinks he can help with this process. The problem is that it's a lot more complicated than that- desensitiving someone to their triggers takes a lot of time and care, or else you just end up retraumitizing them and can actually make it way worse.
> 
> Think of it like this: if you're super freaked out by spiders, a therapist would not randomly chuck a bucket filled with spiders on you with no warning as you're going about your daily life. Instead, you might go to a therapy session and have your therapist show you a picture of a spider for a few seconds. After a few weeks of that, they might show you a video of a spider. Once you're used to that, they might put you in the same room as a spider, but the spider is in a glass cage at the other end of the room and you know you can leave at any point. 
> 
> It's all about choices, preparation, and building yourself up for it. Kakashi is the therapist chucking a bucketful of spiders on the patient's head. Since he doesn't get why it isn't working (Since it "worked" for him, in the sense that he either was subconciously only exposing himself to his triggers when he was prepared for it, or more likely, that he was able to better clamp down on his response but is still SUPER traumitized and filled with bad coping mechanisms and constantly on the verge of a breakdown) he's going to keep trying to help her in the same, damaging way. 
> 
> I promise that really soon, Sakura's gonna get the mental help she needs from someone who knows what they're doing. 
> 
> *im not a psych student or professional therapist anything, but when i found out i had more common but less acknowledged form of ptsd i did a lot of reading up on it. reading about MY stuff inevitably meant reading about the other types, so, here we are.

**Author's Note:**

> the idea of sakura successfully taking the hit on top of the hospital is inspired by the formerones FANTASTIC fic, "the pretty one", you should definitely check that out! (I promise everything after the inciting incident on the roof is very different so i'm not just stealing their superb workmanship, lol.)


End file.
